82: beginner’s mind

I’m not quite as awesome as the things. But cultivating the beginner’s mind is my resolution for the new year.

The Things are, of course, one of the places I need to cultivate the beginner’s mind. It’s easy to get performance anxiety or apathetic. It’s hard to tell when a creative process is fallow for a good reason and when the mind needs a good nudge. That’s an area where I’ve found people’s feedback and prompting (be it here, twitter, facebook or meatspace) so useful. It gives me a little creative jolt and reminds me that I should spend time with the Things. Getting Erik’s Christmas card helped get the juices flowing as well. It’s so amazing to get art inspired by your own work. It made me joyfully want to get back to work. I got the card before Christmas and as you can see it’s after Christmas now, but I needed to get other stuff done (like a novel) and the card on my desk acted as a gentle reminder.

I feel a bit awkward, I feel like I say thank you a lot and that might seem trite (though maybe I don’t say thank you enough because I worry about overusing it…), but I only say thank you because it’s true. I am filled with gratitude far more than I ever say and it is a pleasure to be of service :-).